Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority bosses and their regulatory Authority Zimbabwe Energy Regulatory Authority counterparts were today humiliated by an unscheduled blackout while trying to defend their bad service.
The shameful situation occurred in the presence of officials from the Ministry of Energy and Power Development.
ZERA and CCZ organized a public meeting for domestic consumer education, where the senior officials took turns to defend the electricity supply company on why there are power cuts.
ZESA national senior engineer Mathew Sibindi and the Western Region ZESA General Manager Lovemore Chinaka were at loss of words when ZESA abruptly switched off during the address by Mrs Gloria Magombo who is the Chief Executive Officer.
“Now you can explain to us practically, as we have been telling you in the morning that you cut power without notifying us your consumers. Address us now as to how does this happen!” shouted the crowd who were in the middle of the workshop.
The situation was rescued by ZERA technical department, who diverted the attention of the angry crowd by making group presentation on the solar power and biogas energy.
This did no did not go well with the already livid crowd who demanded that ZESA officials must explain their load schedule.
ZESA’s commercial Manager Western region Sibindi braved the chilling situation by addressing the crowd in admission that their power company was in trying times, adding the power utility owes their external power service providers citing that the situation can only be arrested if consumers settle the outstanding bills.
His sentiment were echoed by those of Mrs Magombo, ZERA CEO, who said that Zimbabwe owes other countries, and they were exporting power to get payments to settle the debt.
“Please bear with us, we are not living in a vacuum, we borrow from others and we need also to repay the debts, that is why we are in this predicament,” she said.